# Turn 001 — Keep the Seed, Bring Lio Home, Ready the Ground

Hazelstead will not answer one danger by creating three more. This month we protect the seed and one another first; then we make the ground and homes less vulnerable to the same rain. We will use the woodland deliberately, not as a panic remedy.

I ask each lead to state their own intention before work begins: what they mean to accomplish, what they will protect, and when they will return for help. They have authority over the method within the limits below. At the end of the month, Nessa, Corren, Ilya, Tamm, and Wen will report in the open: what was found, what was spent, what changed, and what Hazelstead can now rely on.

## Priority 1 — Secure seed and learn what can still be planted

Nessa retains authority over the seed house and its quarantine. Her intention is to preserve every viable kernel and give garden households an honest planting plan, while preventing the suspected spoilage from reaching sound stores.

With her two customary witnesses and a few careful helpers, she will:

- Keep the warm, sweet-smelling basket isolated. It is neither planted, eaten, nor mixed with other seed.
- Inspect and count each basket separately, recording its place in the house, dampness, smell, appearance, and estimated quantity. Sound baskets remain closed and apart from suspect ones.
- Take only small, clearly marked samples from every basket for germination trials in protected baskets or trays. The samples are not to be returned to the reserve. Nessa will compare sprouting and visible mold before recommending which lots are planted, held, or discarded.
- During the first two dry days, work with Wen to move baskets away from the leaking seam and spread any damp but not obviously spoiled grain thinly on clean, raised drying racks under close watch. No seed is left out in rain, mixed between lots, or left where animals can reach it.

Wen is responsible for closing the seed-house seam during those same dry days, using the materials and repair practice he judges sound. Nessa may stop handling or drying work if rain, visible spreading mold, or an inability to keep lots separate makes it unsafe. If no dry window comes, the first safeguard is separation, raised storage, and roof preparation—not an improvised large drying effort.

When the first trials give useful signs, Nessa will call the garden households together. We will agree publicly on a conservative planting allocation: preserve enough of the best-confirmed seed for a second attempt or next season, plant the soundest lots first in the most workable ground, and record who receives what. If viable seed proves sharply short, that fact comes to the whole village before we decide on any clearing, exchange, or change in food use.

## Priority 2 — Find Lio without making another family wait

Corren’s intention is to locate Lio or establish his last safe trace while returning every searcher safely. He will choose four capable people familiar with the western trap line; he may include his brother only if the party agrees he can travel and judge safely. The other hunters remain available to Hazelstead.

The party leaves a route and expected return with a named person at home, carries food, fire-making gear, cordage, and what practical aid it can carry without becoming slow or overloaded. It follows the known trap line and checks likely shelters and storm-felled ground; it does not press into unknown flooded country merely to extend the search.

The search turns back on the first sign that water, weather, injury, fading light, or loss of the known route threatens a second rescue. If no safe answer is found by the agreed return point, Corren reports what was checked and where Lio’s trail was last reliable. I will then hear whether a second search needs local knowledge. No promise of clearing, exchange, or boundary use is made in Hazelstead’s name.

If travel conditions permit without delaying the search, a single messenger may go only as far as the familiar northern approach to Juniper Fold, ask whether anyone has seen Lio or knows of storm damage on the western line, and return. The messenger offers thanks and ordinary hospitality later, but no exclusive access or commitment concerning marked trees or routes.

## Priority 3 — Make existing ground and homes safer

Ilya’s intention is to help the gardens shed standing water without polluting springs or exhausting the regrowth plot. He will walk the garden edges with the garden households and mark the smallest channels, raised paths, hurdles, and maintenance points that can move surface water away from plots while keeping every outlet clear of the protected springs. Work begins only where the water’s course is evident; no broad drainage cut is opened on guesswork.

Garden households decide ordinary details around their own plots and supply labor as they can. Ilya coordinates shared crossings and the connections between plots. A small group of woodworkers may cut only the needed poles and hurdles from agreed regrowth areas; Beren marks the work and verifies that no bee tree, windbreak, customary marker, or promising straight stand is taken. This is not a new clearing. Permanent clearing is deferred until the seed result, ground survey, and household recognition make its costs plain.

Tamm walks the six persistently damp homes with each household. She identifies immediate measures—clearing safe surface flow away from thresholds, raising bedding and stores, improving ventilation when weather permits, and watching for illness. She may halt work that sends water toward a spring or exposes a household to cold and rain. Households needing help receive it through a visible rotation, with the work witnessed so the burden and credit do not disappear.

## My role and decision limits

I will spend the opening days with Nessa and the witnesses to make the seed accounting trusted, then send off and receive Corren’s party, and convene the garden and household meeting once the first seed findings are known. I will settle conflicts between seed protection, search safety, and shared labor; I will not dictate the specialists’ craft decisions.

This month Hazelstead does not consume seed, drain toward springs, open permanent new fields, or make long-term promises beyond the village. Our success is not merely a repaired roof or cleared ditch: it is a known seed position, a safe account of Lio, safer wet-season routines, and named people able to lead them again.